Dani Pedrosa feels Marc Marquez 'crushed everything' in order to join Ducati's factory MotoGP team in 2025, but is nonetheless impressed by how he transformed his fortunes in 12 months.
The 31-time grand prix winner has weighed in on how Marquez successfully orchestrated a rider market shuffle to grab the coveted seat at Ducati alongside Francesco Bagnaia for 2025.
It was Marquez’s reluctance to move to Pramac on the latest-spec bike that left Ducati with no option to promote him to the factory team, having originally decided on signing Pramac ace Jorge Martin to replace the underperforming Enea Bastianini.
The U-turn that the Italian marque was forced into making was proof of the power Marquez commands in MotoGP, despite not winning a grand prix since 2021.
Marquez's antics are reminiscent of his former rival and fellow MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, who was also known for manipulating the factories to act in his favour. In this case, securing the biggest star on the MotoGP grid meant Ducati will lose out on last year's runner-up and long-time satellite team Pramac.
Pedrosa, who was Marquez’s team-mate during a dominant phase for Honda between 2013 and 2018, believes the events of the last few months show the ruthless nature of the 31-year-old.
“In Valentino's case, his moves have always been made a little more from the heart, with a little more love, with a little more affection for the brand, with that harmony with what he was doing," Pedrosa told Autosport's sister site es.motorsport.com.
“I think Marc Marquez is making that change, going through everything, crushing everything, whatever it takes.
“Marc has said ‘I have to be in that place’, so you can see that as a good thing, to say this guy wants to win and it's a credit to him for what he's doing.
“And in the same way you can think the opposite. Because I don't know how the issue of [personal sponsor] Red Bull is going to be, because we have already seen that the Honda issue is behind us.
“There are many things in between that have accompanied him during this time, mechanics and all, but he has preferred to have the winning bike than to continue with all these relationships that he has had for so many years.
“There are people who can see that as a good thing and others who can see it as a bad thing.
“In reference to the question of the comparison with Valentino, those changes that he had, I think that he always did them more for what he felt in his heart than because he chose the winning bike, no matter what.”
A year ago, Marquez was in a dire state at Honda, struggling to get results on an RC213V that had turned into an extremely uncompetitive and crash-prone bike.
At that time, he was contracted to Honda until the end of the 2024 season, but chose to end his relationship with the Japanese manufacturer early and take a plunge with the Gresini team.
Quick adaptation and early success on his year-old GP23 bike brought him into the frame for a factory seat at Ducati.
Pedrosa, who now serves as a test rider for KTM, emphasised that the rate with which Marquez has exchanged the slowest bike on the grid to Ducati's factory team that currently fields the most dominant machine is “impressive”.
“The other day he surprised me because he said in his statements in Assen on Thursday that he was about to retire [in 2023], and that perception had never reached me, that he was going to retire,” Pedrosa added.
“I understand that he couldn't continue in that situation [with Honda], but that's normal, to understand that any rider who wants to be a winner can't stay many years in such a bad situation, as may now be happening to Joan Mir.
“In any case, the ability he has had to turn the tables is impressive. Because you have Jorge Martin, who has done everything and more to deserve that bike. I would like to think that he couldn't have done more.
“I don't know what weapons he [Marquez] has used, nor what the strategies behind it are, but in any case he has gone from being on the bike he had with the official Honda to, in no time at all, being on the factory bike that he has [for 2025]. And that's difficult.”
